Pirates starter Paul Skenes took home the 2025 National League Cy Young Award in an unanimous decision. This isn’t really news. There is no surprise here. The hardware had his name etched on it in September.
Skenes followed up his Rookie of the Year campaign by leading all of baseball with a 1.97 ERA over 187 innings pitched. An impressive mark (though an untested one considering he never once faced off against the potent San Francisco Giants lineup). His 0.95 WHIP paced the National League while his 216 strikeouts ranked third.
Behind whom, you may ask? Who’s K-dust was the Splinker-man coughing up by season’s end? Our very own strikeout king: Logan Webb.
Webb finished in fourth place behind Skenes, Philadelphia’s Cristopher Sanchez, and LA’s Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
While Skenes and Sánchez hogged up all the first and second place votes. Yamamoto, Webb, and Milwaukee’s Freddy Peralta were in a bit of a scrap for third in voters’ minds. Webb’s name showed up on 21 of the 30 ballots, earning 10 third-place, 6 fourth-place, and 5 fifth-place votes for 47 total points — well-behind Yamamoto’s 72-point finish, while just inching out ahead of Peralta’s 44.
With an impressive 200+ K – 200+ IP campaign, a Gold Glove win, and top-4 finish for the Cy Young, Webb may have not taken home the ultimate prize, but his 2025 season is another feather-in-his-cap in what is fast becoming one of the more feathery caps around the league. Webb has received Cy Young votes in each of his last four seasons, finishing 11th in 2022 and as high as second in 2023.
It’s hard to say, considering his style and the tough field of competitors, if he’ll ever be the honored guest at the end-of-the-year banquet of National League Pitching, but there’s little doubt that, year-after-year, he belongs at the party.
